I must be missing something. The only difference between the two pics is that Joel's flashlight is off in the 1.08 pic and in the 1.09 pic, it's on, creating the shadows. Shouldn't it be on in both to show the differences?

Is it possible that the difference is that with the new patch things like Joels light ARE on due to the update where as before things like his light were off due to performance issues?

I mean, clearly the difference isn't the added shadow and lighting from Ellie's light like it first seems but maybe Joel's light being on is the difference? I don't know...Can't tell if the article/pictures are being deceptive or we're perceiving them incorrectly.

You could turn on or off the flashlight in the game. Outside of some scenes where it was turned on by the dev because it was really dark. Worked the same way in Uncharted. It'll stay on for the quick transition scenes that are rendered in real time, but may turn itself off in cut-scenes.

This patch has removed the higher quality shadow options for regular PS4 owners. Prior to 1.09, switching the game to 30fps would result in a higher shadow setting being enabled on the base PS4. Now switching the framerate cap doesn't change anything aside from the framerate. Essentially they're just taking away features from regular PS4 owners and making the options more transparent for the people that upgraded.

I understand that. I appreciate attention-to-detail too. My point was, the headline of this article is a textbook example of sensationalism. On top of that, some of the comments here are WAY too enthusiastic.

Not saying that this isn't neat. It's just so tiny and forgettable, yet look at how popular the article is here on N4G. I just find it very weird.

The support is great, but generally these types of patches are testing development techniques for new games, or they are applying new techniques they learned while developing on a new project. Pushing these updates out to fans is awesome.